dm lords win OZF 30 Open!

Congratulations Open winners dm lords

Logs

Gullywash - 2 - 3
Reckoner - 2 - 0
Granary - 4 - 1
Match Thread

Congratulations to dm lords on winning the OZF 30 Open Grand Final against Funny Team.

Season analysis for both teams

dm lords took the victory in their Upper Page game against Random Kritz, leading them to initiate the Pick/Ban process for the Grand Final against Funny Team. However, we must mention dm lords' game against Random Kritz in Round 2 as it was the only break from the dominant form showed by them throughout the season. dm lords lost both Snakewater & Process to Random Kritz which would lead everyone to believe they would avoid those two maps in their final match if their scrims on those maps were also not favourable.

The Pick/Ban process

Beginning the Pick/Ban process, dm lords opted to use their two bans to take both Sunshine and Snakewater out of play however, Sunshine is not Process. Their in-season performances on Sunshine weren't all that bad, but Sunshine typically plays out and feels very similar to Process, however, Funny Team beat out xo in their regular season fixture in Round 6 on both Gullywash, and Sunshine. By all indications, Sunshine was a much stronger map for Funny Team and would be considered by many as a fair ban. Funny Team responded with more fair choices, deciding to remove both KOTH maps from play (those being Product & the newly added Clearcut). Their in-season results on Product have been mixed, and while they may have played scrims on Clearcut, they ended up being awarded a forfeit win in Round 7. Funny Team ended up dropping Product 3-0 in their Round 5 matchup against dm lords, furthering the consensus of dm lords leaning into their stronger deathmatch capabilities.

Leading into the Map Picks, neither team has had poor numbers on Gullywash or Reckoner, opting to pick both maps immediately. dm lords picked Gullywash, Funny Team responded in kind with the Reckoner pick, but the third pick did raise some eyebrows. While neither team had many issues with Granary in Round 1, we expected to see Process be chosen by dm lords as it would likely be more favourable to their players. Instead, they decided to bring Granary into the fold, which left many concerned as it is somewhat of an outlier for these teams. While the final pick left everyone surprised, it would conclude the Pick/Ban process and leave us with Gullywash, Reckoner and Granary to close out the season.

Of course, the season wasn't over yet, Funny Team would need to supersede their previous playoffs victories that brought them from the third position coming into the Lower Page game, all the way through to this finale. While their showing throughout the season has been strong, it wasn't as convincing as the streak dm lords had been on since Round 3. With only dropping one match in the regular season, dm lords aimed to continue their success into this match. The game was riddled with less playful banter, technical issues and a mercenary kafuffle, but it resulted in one of the closest matchups of all the divisions' Grand Finals.

Gullywash

Kicking off the first map Gullywash, Funny Team was unable to have the soldiers initiate the mid-fight, being caught in Big Door. dm lords' submarine took a lot of early ground, forcing the enemy team back into the dropdown flank of Krocz, pinching Funny Team into a near-wipe. After being caught on mid, a full uber advantage rolled into last against off-classes, dm lords got time on the point early which Funny Team failed to prevent and ended up dropping the first round to dm lords.

Coming into the second round, Funny Team opted to bomb Magnett into dm lords and play a more aggressive mid. While a substantial amount of damage was dealt, the core of Funny Team was unable to follow up on the damage dealt, leaving both of their soldiers in the lurch with only frags on the other team's soldiers to show for it. dm lords finals stand in medic player just jazz secured a frag onto Hero, the demoman for Funny Team, which quickly closed off that mid-fight in their favour. After another mid-fight death for Funny Team' medic Yric, dm lords brought a full uber advantage barreling towards the opposing last, but Magnett wasn't having it, bringing one of the best bombs of the match into the choke and forcing just jazz through multiple players. Let's just say, you have Magnett to blame for initiating the next 22-odd minutes of typical CP stalemating and after a few close coast-to-coast territory exchanges, we finally see an eerily similar last point fight, reminiscent of the end of the first round. dm lords brought in significantly less uber advantage compared to last time, however, but like the end of the previous round - early point time and a failure to address it on the side of Funny Team led to the second round going to dm lords.

With only five minutes left on the board, Funny Team would need to pick up the momentum they prevented roughly twenty minutes prior. Spoiler alert if you have already looked at the logs for this map, it leads to a Golden Cap round. Arriving at mid with just under five minutes left, I would forgive you for wondering how Funny Team found the proverbial ball of momentum they knocked out of the hands of dm lords so early on in the map. Well here is how it went, Yric died on mid again along with the other half of the team, dm lords converted that into some momentum again, but some excellent combinations of flank play and bombs from Funny Team, namely 95, resulted in a workable uber advantage they could use to push dm lords back to their last. The counter-bomb came out of Krocz but only led to a one-player advantage being added to the list of advantages Funny Team had pushing into this last. Entering the last point, Funny Team had also caught dm lords without their off-classes being ready. xobile ended up going down before Funny Team entered, leaving them at a player disadvantage. Due to this, they also lost their uber advantage while waiting for xobile to be close to spawning. After bringing in the uber, they only managed to get the sentry gun and lost their own demoman Hero, leading to dm lords being able to clean up more players from the side of Funny Team. However, xobile wanted to redeem himself after dying early and stunting their push, so he decided to flank dm lords and challenge the brass beast heavy left on last, managing to pick up the frag and the back-cap, bringing Funny Team their first round.

In the fourth round of Gullywash, Funny Team had only two minutes to convert the last round needed to bring the Golden Cap to fruition. Off the back of some very good initiation of the soldiers 95 and Magnett, they continue to clean up players to pull a round win from the brink. Yet again, xobile wanted to continue the valuable picks being sent the way of Funny Team, catching just jazz just before he could get his uber, dying at 98%. Off the back of these plays, we witnessed the last round needed to bring the map to the desired Golden Cap.

So there we were, getting ready to witness the only Golden Cap in Grand Finals for the season, in the last match of the season. Both dm lords and Funny Team showed a more measured approach to this mid-fight, to be expected in this situation. dm lords got ground early and while losing the same amount of players as Funny Team, managed to push them out of mid with even ubers. As far as mid-fights go, it was almost textbook, keeping their medic alive. To change the trend, however, Funny Team managed to keep Yric alive on a mid for the first time so far, but after some awkward frag exchanges dm lords managed to push in and cap second. But this was fine for Funny Team, in those frag exchanges xobile managed to pick up a soldier while on sniper, which left him in the perfect position to punish just jazz for not respecting the sniper after trying to rotate to river from the second point. With this pick, the momentum instantly flipped to the side of Funny Team, and they made sure not to waste it, pushing dm lords back to their last in minutes, quickly dealing with the off-classes and converting the Golden Cap win to their side. With Funny Team narrowly taking Gullywash, it left us wondering how a typically less stalemated map Reckoner would leave them.

Coming from Gullywash, xobile, Magnett and 95 were the MVP standouts for Funny Team, off their backs they managed to convert a three-round sweep from under dm lords, all in under ten minutes. While these three had arguably the most impact on the map, Reckoner would be a shakeup that Funny Team may have expected could be possible, but not in any way they imagined. After sorting out technical and mercenary issues, we were underway on Funny Team' map pick after they just robbed dm lords of theirs.

Reckoner

After a fairly long wait that was sure to demolish any momentum from either team, we started somewhat fresh on Reckoner. Jumping into the first mid, an early pick onto just jazz spelt a quick end, with another two players following him to the respawn queue. Funny Team used those picks to walk into dm lords last, but after losing a player before the uber, the combination of poor positioning when they used and an enemy sentry gun among other things, meant dm lords were able to hold the point. Sadly, this situation ended up being felt via déjà vu later in the match, with fifteen more minutes of coast-to-coast pushes from both teams, neither obtaining any usable advantage until a series of deaths and a force onto Yric left an uber advantage to the side of dm lords, and they made sure to use it well. The counter uber eventually came from Funny Team, but they never found the frags needed to stunt the ground control dm lords had on their own last, leaving four players alive to struggle over the last point. With two on each side, sadly dm lords with two deathmatch classes alive (oh the irony) ended up closing out the first round in their favour, eighteen minutes in.

The second mid wasn't too distant from the first, however, both teams ended up losing more players, significantly more. With no usable advantages for either side, it would leave the push forward for the mid-fight victors Funny Team to be a very slow one, dm lords would know to bring up off-classes to slow down any attempted aggression and turtle for time. But an all-too-familiar trend reared its head yet again, and dm lords found opportunities to reverse their way to Funny Team' last point, with only minutes left. After some less than desirable trades, dm lords would manage to clean up the remaining players left to defend their point and converted a second round to them. With only twenty seconds left on the clock, it seemed like Funny Team were not the only ones able to throw an upset into the ring, and ended up losing their map pick to dm lords.

Reckoner certainly felt like the fastest map so far, technically it was faster than Gullywash, and while Funny Team managed to have a much more convincing and dominating presence earlier in the map compared to Gullywash, dm lords never let the situation deteriorate into a round win for Funny Team. With both teams securing each other's map picks as their map wins, the relative unknown of Granary for both teams spelt an interesting dilemma. Gullywash ended up being stalemated heavily, and while Reckoner also saw some stalemates, much of the time spent for both teams were working any small momentum or advantages they had into something usable for the last point push. On paper, Granary for these teams was promised to be a crawl, but it certainly didn't start as one.

Granary

Granary opened with a mid-fight any team would like to avoid, both medics being unable to leave the mid and dying as a result. The only surviving player from Funny Team dril managed to get an uber advantage for his team, but it eventually got traded out in yard and second. After a few more of those typical awkward Granary exchanges with and without uber, Yric was caught on second which poetically started the beginning of the end for that round. After a few more uber trades and namely a large advantage, Krocz found an opportunity to back cap both second and last, resulting in the first round going to dm lords after seven minutes.

So there they were, starting the second round of Granary, and Funny Team losing the first round demonstrated a lack of map knowledge which was so crucially needed for this match, dm lords waltzed into this mid-fight with a strong display, taking the mid-fight off the cusp of a medic death for Funny Team which was later converted into what they thought was surely the fastest round they would see after coming out on top of each uber exchange and ensuring their medic survived each fight. With the crushing momentum facing Funny Team, the last fight came down to just two players from the side of dm lords alive, but the round went to dm lords.

Three minutes and thirty seconds, surely this was the only fast round, right? From this point, Funny Team needed to have a mid-fight without losing their medic, yet again though that was not the case. dm lords taking the mid win early and managed to restore some momentum seen on Reckoner, bringing out the fastest match of the night at just over one minute and thirty-six seconds. Being only twelve minutes into the map, it had already felt like it was over for the side of Funny Team, and they felt that pressure. They didn't let that pressure deter them from putting up their best round yet, managing to convert the fourth round off the end of a strong mid-fight win, following it up with an equally successful uber trade that resulted in the death of just jazz. This was finally the turning point, they had obtained a player advantage and could quickly cap second, rolling to last. In under four minutes, Funny Team had finally broken free from the shackles dm lords had placed on them, but not all redemption stories work out, and sadly for Funny Team, theirs didn't.

We didn't see the fifth round converted to a win for almost the rest of the map, but it inevitably was. Magnett started the momentum his team needed throughout this round, killing dm lords medic just jazz four times throughout the round, and put forward a series of streaks and crucial picks for them to work from. But to the dismay of Funny Team, many of these opportunities were not being capitalized on. Concluding a sixteen-minute round, dm lords managed to convert some key picks on the enemy combo into usable advantages, pushing Funny Team back to their last point and securing the final round we would see. With only seconds left, dm lords had taken the elusive Granary in their favour, closing out the match with a 4-1 win.

After-thoughts

While not exactly clean, both dm lords and Funny Team managed to flip each other's map picks to their own map victories, but it became clear early on in Granary that not only did dm lords have more of an idea as to what they needed to do, where they needed to be and exactly what advantages they could work off, but the mental game for the side of Funny Team had deteriorated leading to dm lords becoming your ozfortress season 30 Open champions!

Thank you to all the players, support staff and patrons that helped make this season possible. We'll see you all again very soon!

Placements

1st - dm lords
2nd - Funny Team
3rd - Random Kritz

Awards

Best Demoman: muckmud and hidden
Best Medic: twig
Best Pocket: Mango
Best Roamer: jv and less
Best Combo Scout: dril
Best Flank Scout: xobile
Best Utility: Magnett

Most Improved Player: Duckypus
Most Valuable Player: KRB

Friendliest Team: KRB Stans
Most Improved Team: Meat Your Match
Best Dressed Team: Funny Team and Meat Your Match
Best Caster: frydog